Linux network diagram tool: discovery of yED [Quick Guide]

I. introduction yED

here’s some time I went under Linux as daily BONE, after a year under Debian, I am a few months under Ubuntu. To build charts and network diagrams, which often happens to me during the writing tutorial, I was compelled to use a virtual machine with Visio, which most suited me because I don’t like this kind of ‘addicted’, especially with respect to Microsoft 😉

after a brief discussion, one of our Twitter told me that he was using yEd for network diagrams a software which, it must be stressed, is used under Windows as well as Linux and Mac OS . After having briefly used and validated, I therefore makes you discover yEd! 🙂

I am certain that it will satisfy all the Linux users looking for a good 🙂 network diagram tool

II. YEd installation

installation is relatively simple, just download an installer in .sh format, and then execute it, we find a facility via the Java graphical installer that is launched by the .sh. Here’s the download page on the official website: https://www.yworks.com/downloads#yEd

after you download it, you start by adding performance rights to the script bash of installation if they are not already applied:

chmod + x yEd - 3.16.1_64bit_setup.sh

we then execute this script bash as in the following image:

once the JRE (Java) will be deployed , the Java installer will begin:

must then accept the license, and then specify the default directory of storage projects/diagrams:

also, indicate the directory or the symbolic link, will be created by default in / usr/local/bin :

once installation is complete yEd will be ready to be launched for the first time!

III. yED: first use

use is far from being complex, the tool is also far less sophisticated than Visio but it is very widely enough for the realization of diagrams and diagrams network , here is an example of network scheme that I realized with yED:

run yED from your task launcher to get this window :

here, choose “ New Document ‘ to create a new project. To find the network icons, it is at the top right that that this past.

You can freely move the object in the selected before with SHIFT + square of selection around the object. To register a label on an object, it is “ F2 ‘ or right click +”label “.

It is also possible to customize the objects and connectors like arrows:

it is worth noting that on the site of yED, different diagrams and models can be downloaded, it’s made and provided by the Community model:

for information, formats backup supported are graphml (used by default) graphmlz, ygf, gml, xgml and tgf. Note that yED can be used for other types of diagram network diagrams, here are the types of default available diagrams and icons:

that’s it for this tutorial on yED, I thank @ad_minwiki for the discovery of this tool 🙂